Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Two-thirds of U.S. adults who regularly attend religious services say they have heard their clergy speak about at least one political or social issue in the past few months. Of the seven topics we asked about, abortion, Israel and homosexuality were among the most commonly cited.
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Standard lists of history’s most influential religious leaders – among them Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) – tend to be predominantly, if not exclusively, male. Many religious groups, including Roman Catholics and Orthodox Jews, allow only men to be clergy, while others, including some denominations in the evangelical Protestant tradition, have lifted that restriction only in recent decades. Yet it often appears that the ranks of the faithful are dominated by women.
Israeli Druze make up roughly 2% of the country’s population and live mostly in the northern regions of the Galilee, Carmel and the Golan Heights. Their tradition dates back to the 11th century and incorporates elements of Islam, Hinduism and even classical Greek philosophy.
Nearly all Jews in the United States and Israel say they are proud to be Jewish, and strong majorities in both countries say they feel a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people. But the two Jewish communities do not always agree about what it means to be Jewish.
The two largest organized Jewish denominations in America – Reform and Conservative Judaism – together have about five times as many U.S. members as the historically much older, more strictly observant Orthodox community. But the Reform and Conservative movements have a far smaller footprint in Israel.
As Donald Trump has racked up big wins among self-described “born-again or evangelical” Christians in many of the early primaries, some religious leaders, political analysts and researchers have questioned whether many of these self-described evangelicals actually are evangelical Christians.
Public optimism among Israeli Arabs and Jews that a two-state solution is possible may be receding in Israel.
There are only about 6 million Jews living in Israel, but there are major religious, social and political chasms that divide them.
Key takeaways from Pew Research Center’s comprehensive study of religion in Israel, where there are major divisions not only between Jews and Arabs, but also within the major subgroups of Israeli Jews.
There are deep divisions in Israeli society over political values and religion’s role in public life — not only between Jews and the Arab minority, but also among the religious subgroups that make up Israeli Jewry.
We looked at nine major religious organizations in the U.S. that both ordain women and allow them to hold top leadership slots.
Across 25 countries, Americans are the most likely to see the morality and ethics of people in their country as somewhat or very bad.
Singapore is the world’s most religiously diverse country overall as of 2020, while Yemen is the least diverse. But the U.S. ranks first among nations with very large populations, followed by Nigeria and Russia.
The Christian share of the population, after years of decline, has been relatively stable since 2019. And the religiously unaffiliated population, after rising rapidly for decades, has leveled off – at least temporarily.
The Global Religious Futures (GRF) project is jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and The John Templeton Foundation. Here are some big-picture findings from the GRF, together with context from other Pew Research Center studies.
